Cracked Earth
by xxmisfit121
Summary: AU In a dusty town in the middle of nowhere, witches threaten to raise a long forgotten daemon.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Well, I never ever ever thought I'd actually want to do a western ANYTHING, but I figured that since I have to relearn U.S. history for the trillionth time, I may as well use some of it to my advantage._

_Anyway, more about this fic!_

_It's uh... It's a western AU.. I'm going to try really really really hard not to make it cheesy or silly, because this sort of thing can easily go in that direction. Mostly because of the accent/dialogue. I'm doing some minor research for this thing to keep it from being silly. I'll do my best to keep it all plausible and in character as well, for Okubo has made some wonderfully developed characters and I'd hate for them to be wasted._

_Inspiration came from flipping channels when there was nothing on, and luckily finding that the History Channel was not playing Ancient Aliens/Nazi stuff for once and began watching a cowboy documentary... And also Death the Kid's... cowboy...ness..._

_SO! Let's see how this goes... o.e_

_I don't own SoulEater _

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><p>It was mush for breakfast today, thick and sticky and smoking with thin, swirling steam that drifted up into her face and condensed on her dry skin. Papa's sat across the table, steaming just as welcoming as her own with a nicely cleaned spoon laying cold and untouched next to it on the worn wood table. It sat under the glare stemming from her normally soft honeydew eyes that had turned to hard jade in the presence of wasted food.<p>

Her fists were pushed up under her jaw, holding her head at just the perfect level to stare at the empty, empty, wooden chair. A sigh came out through her nose and her lips tightened and twisted into a sneer. Her eyes, hard like precious gems, traced each and every groove of that chair. The dark wood, with spiraling, though very specific, pattern and precisely three light brown scratches cutting through it, sat far too perfectly under her gaze when it should be blocked from her view by Papa's chest.

There should be a threadbare shirt, smudged with dirt that would never come off and covered by a vest and maybe a jacket, depending on the weather. There should be a pin on his vest, a bit bent and smudged from age, that indicated his position. It would be a little star-shaped thing made out of real gold, the left point bent ever so slightly, with the word "Sheriff" engraved into it's surface.

Maka didn't know how her papa had gotten that pin. He doesn't even really do anything. In fact, he _can't _really even do anything, not without his meister anyway. _He _should be the sheriff, not her papa. But Doc Stein was already the town doctor and barber. She figured they just wanted someone else with the title.

She supposed, as she glared at that far too empty chair, that she should assume that the reason it's normal occupant is absent is because of his duties as sheriff. She supposed she should assume that he had been hauled up with some sort of problem with a criminal. She supposed she should assume he was doing something important.

But she knew he wasn't.

He never was.

Nothing happened in this town anyway. It was a hastily built place, thrown up in six months next to a newly discovered silver mine. It'd be empty again in a year or two and then her and her good-for-nothing-papa would move on to the next town. No one ever really came through here much anymore anyway. The silver mine was drying up, closing over like a scab that would no longer bleed it's riches.

No one ever came here. Papa wasn't doing a damned thing.

He'd just been out gambling or drinking too late again.

So she sat, staring at the wasted mush that was cooling into useless slop she'd have to feed to the horses or something. It would not go to waste, that was for sure. She wasn't going to let him waste any more of the food she cooked for him. She'd figure out something to do with it.

Maybe she should wait for him a little longer. Maybe she should wait and see if he comes home.

No. Not today.

With intense movements, her hands slipped from her face leaving one elbow to fall onto the table and the other hand to grip her spoon tightly. Her eyes were still hard as she dug her spoon into her own mush, leaving a dent that would take a while to refill itself, and stuck it into her mouth.

No. She was not waiting for him today.

* * *

><p>Hinges creaked and moaned as she swung the door open and her boots echoed over the rotting wood of the porch, turned soft and smooth by the wind and sand and then scuffed over by so many feet. A thin layer of grit had ground itself into each and every crevice and there was a layer of dust on everything that would never be cleaned off. Not even the air was clean.<p>

The air was hot and thick with the dead, dry, dirt of the desert, stifling and choking and so desperate for water it took every bit from her creamy skin and cracked her lips open until they bled. She licked them in hopes to restore them to the soft rosebuds they'd never be again, a thin copper taste coming off on her tacky tongue.

Her gums stuck to the inside of her mouth as she swallowed, trying to sooth her stinging throat. She inhaled dust as she gripped her long, flowing burgundy skirt and held it up with one hand and clutched a bucket with the other as she stepped down the two shallow steps and into the dirt of the street. The sand was embroidered with horse prints and the trails of wagon wheels and so many foot prints that would be blown away in less than in hour, gone without a trace.

Little clouds of dust swirled up around her feet as she walked, clinging to her boots and to the hem of her skirt, like pestilent children that would not leave her alone. She glanced over at the sheriff's house only briefly as she walked away, and noticed something had changed. The same Wanted Posters that hung there had been joined by two others. On two sheets of parchment in neat black ink were drawn the faces of two young women. One who appeared to be older had long hair and, quite honestly, a strikingly beautiful face. Perhaps it had been exaggerated. These posters weren't always accurate after all.

**Wanted**

**Elizabeth Thompson**

**Dead or Alive**

**Reward between $400 and $500 **

That was one hell of a reward, or at least, it was one of the higher one's up there. The other new face, also a young woman, was framed with short hair. Something inside Maka made her wonder what in the world would possess her to cut it off. Her poster read:

**Wanted**

**Patricia Thompson**

**Dead or Alive**

**Reward between $200 and $350**

Maka sighed. Maybe her Papa had in face been doing something important and that had been why he hadn't come to breakfast. But then again... what were the odds?

She just shook her head and walked away.

Maka paced through the baking streets, the sun already getting hot even in the early morning. The streets were becoming occupied and the sounds of chatter and squeaking wagon wheels sounded through her ears. She half-heartedly wondered where her Papa was, but shrugged the thought off quickly and continued on her way.

She wove her way through the people and around the corners of hastily built buildings, the shadows distinctly colder than the rest of the world when she walked through them. She adjusted her grip on the smooth handle of her bucket as she took step after step. Her tongue stuck more and more to the roof of her mouth as she walked and every bit of the air seemed to get dryer and dryer as she thought of her destination.

Please let there be some...

Please let there be some...

Please let there be...

Please let there...

Please...

Please...

Please...

Her dry and bleeding lips tightened, and her eyebrows pull together even further, though here eyes were already scrunched tight to ward off the bright morning sun. Her hands would've sweat if they could. Instead, they were as cracked and dead as the earth under her feet.

Everything here was just dead, dead and ground to dust. The earth was simply naked bones with no skin to protect it, no muscles to hold it up, and no fat to keep it nourished. It was just dead as dead can be, a long forgotten corpse of what it may have once been. If it had ever been alive, that is.

It was hard to imagine this place, built of sand, rocks, and dried out plants, could've ever been alive. She swallowed, trying to wet her parched throat.

Please let there be some...

Please...

Please...

Please...

She took a deep breath as she rounded another corner and came to the edge of the tiny cow town. It was right there, stuck into the ground like a perfect, shining ,trophy, all covered in grime and rust. Her footsteps hastened, her dirt-caked boots kicking up more dust as she trotted toward the well.

She placed the bucket underneath the spout, the handle falling down with a clank, and gripped the iron handle tightly.

Please...

Please...

Please...

She pushed down on the handle and, thankfully, there was force pushing against her. She let out a breath and pulled it all the way down. Water, shining and beautiful like precious precious diamonds, dripped from the spout and sloshed into the metal bucket, though it was dyed brown with dead, dead, dirt.

She let the handle go up and then she pulled it down again, more water spilling into the bucket all lovely and dirty. And then she did it again, and again, and again, and again, rhythmically like she did day after day until the bucket was filled as high as it would go without spilling over.

She sighed a bit more, a bit of sweat creating a film on her brow. She gripped the handle of the bucket and lifted it, though it was heavier now, with perfect ease.

And then she walked back around the buildings, through the dirt and the grit, and through all the busy people under the laughing, smiling sun that seemed to be working his hardest to bake them all alive, and back to the sheriff's house.

She walked through the worn wooden place and out the back door that hung on loose hinges. She gripped her skirt as she walked down the couple of stairs, cold in the shadow of the buildings. The ice of the shadows felt good on her back, so hot and burning from the heat under her worn white button-down shirt.

The dirt here was stiffer and less dusty under her feet and still cool from night. Her boots left deeper prints that would take a little bit longer to erase.

Maka walked over to the stable where they kept their horse, a chestnut one named Poppie-Seed, and dumped the water from the bucket into the metal trough that sat before her, spilling into it like a beautiful waterfall, a fountain of life. The horse was still sleeping.

She'd brush and feed her later. For now, she had to go back through the house, through the sea of people and dust, across this skeletal husk of land, around the buildings and back to the well.

The bucket was dropped below the spout and she cranked the handle down, over and over again, forcing water from the ground. It sloshed and spilled and occasionally trickled into the bucket until it was as full as it could be, and then she picked it up and dragged it all the way back through the growing throng of people and dust and through the house and into the back.

This bucket was dumped into the barrel that was only half full at the moment. Once the bucket was empty and light, she'd go back back back and do it all over again, through the crowds, around the buildings, pumping water out of the ground and into the bucket and then back. Back and forth, over and over. Just repeat, repeat, repeat, until the barrel was full.

She was almost done now, she figured. She'd only have to do it one more time. She only needed one more bucket-full and then at least this chore would be done. Then she could go figure out where her papa had gone, maybe.

When she got to the well this time, though, she had to wait her turn, as someone was already using it. So her rhythm broke and she had to stand still, the bucket clutched tight in her grip, and wait. Not that this was a problem. She'd just been lucky enough so far not to run into anyone yet today.

She'd never seen this person before, though. She definitely would've remembered with the way he looked. He was her own age, or a bit older, and he was absolutely striking.

If she couldn't see his face, with soft tanned skin and young features, she'd never have known he was as young as he was, though. His hat was strapped to his neck and hanging on his back, so all of his hair was visible, all of his snowy, alabaster hair as pure and soft as the clouds she wished she could say were in the sky.

He didn't notice her though, or at least didn't mind, as she waited. When he was finished with his task, his own bucket full, he wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up. He briefly glanced at her as he walked away, and her eyes went wide and she couldn't keep her mouth from falling slightly.

She couldn't be seeing him right. She couldn't be. But those were his eyes...

His eyes were ringed with tired bags, and his irises were crimson as gushing blood.

D-deamon...

* * *

><p>Maka had finished her water chore and cleaned the horse and fed her and brushed her. She was done with her chores at the moment. It was nearing noon now. She'd have to go shopping soon, but she figured she could spare a few minutes to find her papa, even though she didn't have to look that hard.<p>

She knew right where he'd be.

She pushed open the little wooden doors of the saloon, the walls coated in pretty red wallpaper all full of bullet holes and the floor boards stained with spilt whiskey. Men were talking loudly, avidly, all sitting around tables and already playing cards and drinking this early in the day. A piano was playing in the corner, a lively and quick tune vibrating off flitting strings and little white keys.

She walked through the place determinedly, weaving around people who didn't even notice her and stepping carefully around tables, her hand clutching her skirt the whole time.

Then she sighed for the hundredth time that day.

There he was.

And she walked right up to him, as he sat in a corner table with a woman hanging onto his chest. She had curly black hair, and oddly yellow eyes like honey, and that perfect perfect body he loved so much strung into a corset. He was talking softly to her, his long red hair hanging down in his face and hiding his turquoise eyes.

"Papa..." she said, a growl in her voice to announce her presence.

He looked up at her, surprise and embarrassment in his eyes.

"O-oh, Maka, um..." he stuttered as he took his arm of the woman. "Wh-what is it? What're ya' doin' here?"

"You weren't here for breakfast this mornin'" she said, a quick, disgusted glance landing on the stupidly confused looking woman. "An' I kinda jus' wanted to tell you that I'm done with my chores."

She was starting to feel dumb for coming here.

"Oh," he paused. "Good. Good."

"Yeah."

"And uh, sorry 'bout this mornin'..." he apologized like he always did.

"Mhmm..."

"I'll be home in a little while. I ah, got hung up wit' Stein last night," he said. "Don'chu worry, though. I'll be back home in a little while."

"Yeah."

He nodded dismissively.

"I guess I'll jes' get goin' then..." she said, an angry sneer on her face.

And she walked off, angrier with him than when she'd come.

"Wait, uh, Maka?" he called after her when she was several steps away. She stopped and turned around. "C-com'ere. I needa tell you somthin'."

Then he whispered something to his lady and she pouted and got up and walked away. Maka walked back over to him, arms crossed.

"Here, sit," he said, tapping the now empty chair.

She sat.

"An old friend of mine's son is goin' to be stayin' with us for a while," he said.

"Aw, Papa, why?" she responded without quite thinking, her frustration with her papa overcoming her opinion on this houseguest.

"Hey, now none o' that," he said sternly. "His father's a very good friend o' mine and you should show him some hospitality when he comes. He'll probably be here in a week or two."

"Yeah, Papa, I will," she said earnestly. "How long's he stayin' for, though?"

"I dunno," Papa said. "He's got a nervous condition and needs to get outa' the city for a while. Fresh air, y'know?"

"Well, there's not any fresh air 'round here," Maka mumbled.

"Yeah, well," he nodded agreeingly. "Well, just treat 'em nice when he get's here. Who knows, you might like 'em."

"Awright," she said, standing up with her arms still crossed.

"I'll be back home later," he said again, ending the conversation. Maka nodded. She stood there for another awkward moment before walking away again.

She paced back through the place, around chairs and tables and people. This was where everyone went to meet and talk every day. It was always packed full.

As her boots fell over and over again on the hard wood floor, she took a deep breath and decided that having a house guest would at least make life more interesting. Someone new to talk to was always a good thing. He also would be able to help her with chores.

The one thing that stuck in her mind, though, as the ivory keys of the piano sang beautiful notes into existence that were muffled by the loud words that erupted from the mouths of everyone in here, was the word "nervous condition". She hated that word and all of it's vagueness. It could mean just about anything. It was just a label they gave you when they didn't know what was wrong with you.

As she neared the door, and the piano that sat just next to it, she inhaled dusty air and closed her eyes briefly. That was such a dumb word with a fickle existence. It was a label that ruined people's lives. She wondered if he was like...

Then her eyes flicked to the side, suddenly and almost without her consent, as she was almost out the door, to the well-used piano just next to her.

Her breath held itself in her chest, unwilling to leave. The piano, all wooden and worn at the corners with yellowing keys and tarnishing foot petals that played such lively and wonderful music, was being played by sun-kissed hands that flew so gracefully over each key. Each finger touched it so delicately, strangely lovingly, and then moved onto the next in a perfect rhythm. Those hands were worn with work, but still so young. This was not what shocked her, however.

Long white sleeves puckered around his wrists and folded around his elbows, smattered and smeared with the dirt of the land. A standard vest hung on his shoulders as well, but this too was not at all shocking.

Around his jaw fell hair as white as the snow and clouds she'd never seen. It fell in his face softly and loosely, hiding eyes she knew were crimson as cactus blossoms. It was him again. It was him.

And she watched as his hands, connected to a body that looked so much like a daemon's, pluck beautiful music from handpicked keys. As she watched him so intently, his chest began to glow beneath only her eyes. An orb, shimmering blue and calm and cool, hung inside his ribcage for only her to see. He looked so daemonic, so unnatural, but his soul was so incredibly human, and perfectly normal. Though, she saw, he was rather timorous, which is why she shouldn't have jumped when he smashed down on the keys.

All noise stopped, all the music and all the talking as everyone turned to look.

"D'you need something?" he asked calmly. There was something in his eyes, though, as he looked at her without turning his head, that contradicted his deep, collected voice.

"N-no," Maka said hastily. "Sorry."

And then she was out the door and into the dusty streets, her heart slamming into her ribcage and her feet moving without her consent.

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><p>AN: so um... yeah... I hope that was acceptable for the first chapter. Next chapter will involve BlackStar. He was going to be in this chapter but... idk... I didn't think it fit.

Terminology: Mush: Basically, oatmeal. Only nowhere near as sweet as we make it now.

Hopefully next chapters will be longer. Kid will also be quite important when he comes in, because I just can't help it. He's too adorable and it's too easy to imagine him in this setting. xD


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Yay new chapter! With more characters and POV's this time to make it a bit more interesting_

_Don't own SoulEater _

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><p>There'd been signs, he remembered, painted with bright ink and huge sweeping black letters that curled into themselves like narcissistic snakes. The letters called out for attention, demanding that all see what they have to say as they narrated the crudely painted pictures below them. Nails were driven through the delicate paper they were printed on to hold them to posts and pin them flat.<p>

They'd be enormous, overtaking the posts like an overgrown weed that stole sunlight from the rest of the garden. He remembered one with a painting of some hideous humanoid monster with daggers for teeth and shiny metal cresent-shaped spikes ripping through his suit jacket. His face had been snarling animalisticly, like a starved lion with ruined, peeling fabric for skin that hung off his exaggerated form like vines, like tattered tendrils. His hair had been white as snow and his eyes had been a gleaming, ruthless crimson.

He'd allowed himself to laugh a little when he'd first saw them, just a small laugh that stayed mainly in his throat. They'd do anything for attention.

Then his smile would fade when he remembered who he was.

_"Come One! Come All!" _they'd say in the largest of curling letters, or perhaps through a megaphone when there were spectators watching with hungry eyes.

_"Come See the amazing shapeshifting Daemon!"_

Their eyes would widen and their hearts would skip a beat. Some mouths would fall open and once a woman had fainted.

_"Do not be afraid, for he has been subdued into a human form!"_

They truly liked to milk these things, the liars.

_"Come see, Come see! The abominable child who will send you to your knees in shock and awe!"_

Abominable? Now that was a bit much, wasn't it? It was all in the past now, at least. For the most part anyway.

_"It is an oddity you will not again come across, folks!" _

He breathed. He didn't need to be thinking about this. He rolled over in his bed and tried to close his tired eyes. Cameras flashed behind his lids, bright white tinting his thoughts with memories he wished would burn. Or perhaps that was just the sun streaming through the windows of his hotel room. It was only the afternoon, after all.

_"You'll be absolutely stupefied by it's abilities! Step right up and see the boy who can create knives out of his own flesh!" _

The man would bellow it and all he had to do was just stand behind a curtain all red and moth-eaten, tattered from years of traveling. As coins jingled and clattered into a hat just beside the man, he'd just wait for the ratty cloth thing to rise oh-so dramatically and reveal him like the prize he was. He could still hear the cheering, the calling, the clamor of the crowd forming just behind the shield of the blood-colored cloth, gathering like flies around a freshly slaughtered pig in his mind. Oh, how he wished these memories would burn.

_"Come see! Come see! Ladies and Gentlemen, this anomaly, this wonder, this terror will astound you!" _

Of course, of course. They loved him to pieces. He was wonderful, unique, an aberration, truly something to behold! Oh, gaze upon him, you filthy bastards, for there was not another one like him. He traveled all the way from New York just so that you could see his fantastic tricks. He came all this way just for your starving, disgusting eyes. He came all the way for you.

_"Behold! The amazing, the stupendous, and horrible, The Soul Eater!" _

And then the curtain would rise and the cameras would flash and the gasps would come in a chorus of wonderment and people would cheer for him to do his tricks and others would boo him for not going fast enough. But no matter what happened, coin after coin would fall into that hat with quick, overlapping _plink plink plinks, _because he was the horrible daemon who could grow knives from his skin.

And he would, in a few quick flashes of light, grow curved blades from anywhere on his flesh he chose to. They'd shine and glint against the bright, laughing sun and the camera flashes and the eyes of the spectators would be glued wide open with awe.

_"How does he do it?" "What's the trick?" "They must be collapsable!" "Are they real?" "It's fake!" "He's an abomination!" "He's amazing! "It's horrible!" "It's wonderful!" "It should be killed!" _

But no matter what they said, little shining coins all covered in grime would fall into the hat, though he'd never get a single cent. It didn't matter if they were amazed or disgusted, they loved him all the same because he was just so incredibly extraordinary. He was wonderful and horrible, sick and daemonic but oh so glorious. He was a rarity, an abomination, a frivolity, and a vanity fair.

But the Soul Eater was not a daemon.

It was behind him now, though. That man, Noah had been his name, and the rest of that freak show was miles away by now. They were going in the other direction, he believed, back to the east. He could still see the streaks carved into the sand like the trails of snakes as he ran as far away from them as possible. This is as far west as they'd go. He'd never have to deal with them again. He'd never have to see them again. He'd never have to have that sort of attention again.

He could hide.

No one would ever look at him like that again.

At least they'd gotten him this far across the country. He'd be in California within the next few months. Then everything would be better, somehow.

He only wished they hadn't filed down his teeth as he ran his tongue over the sharp ivory points they'd become. He could still feel the scraping of the file, still feel the grinding pain, still feel the grips on his wrists as they held him still and so crudely turned him into a daemon, as though his eyes and hair weren't daemonic enough.

It was over now, though. It was fine. He'd have to get some fake teeth somewhere, though, and try his best to hide the rest of the way he looked. People had a tendency to mistake him for a genuine daemon and would do anything and everything to throw him out of their town. They'd tried to kill him on multiple occasions. Though, every once in a while he'd meet one of those special people who were blessed with the ability to see souls and they'd clear his name. The public didn't always believe them, though, and then he'd be off running again.

He wasn't a daemon, though. He really wasn't. He had no idea why he had this talent. He had no idea what sort of horrendous blunder of nature could've produced such a disturbing ability.

There were scientists that wished to study him, doctors that claimed they'd "heard about this before", and clergymen that wished to exterminate him.

He just couldn't show anybody ever again. He needed to keep everyone's eyes off of him for a long long time. He didn't mind, though. He'd never been quite that social to begin with.

It would be fine.

He could play piano quite well, so that was what he used to make money. He wasn't skilled with field work as he'd grown up in the city. He just wanted to get to California. He'd heard there was gold there. Maybe if he was just able to get there he'd be able to have a decent life.

The problem was, though, he had to be extremely picky about who he asked for work. If they couldn't see souls to see that he wasn't daemonic, then he couldn't even speak to them. It had always been that way. He'd never been able to get a job in the factories back home either.

He was lucky, though, that the folks around here seemed to be twice as likely to be one of those people.

He wondered why. It wasn't as though it was a common talent. His own talent seemed to be the only one less common. He'd never met another person like him before and had only heard vague stories of people who were rumored to be able to do it too.

He'd just heard little tales, fables, of people who could transform into all sorts of weaponry or create weapons from different parts of their bodies. He'd always heard of them when he was little, but hadn't believed them past the age of four. Or at least, that was, until he'd accidentally achieved such a feat apparently in his sleep and had woken up one morning with a shiny, clean blade protruding from his arm and ripping right through his bed sheets.

He was rare, unique, an abomination and a wonder. He was the Soul Eater. He was the daemonic boy who could create knives out of his flesh. He was fantastic, phantasmic, hellish, and magnificent.

And he had absolutely no idea why.

* * *

><p>"BlackStar, I've got things ta' do," Maka sighed, her wet and slightly stinging hands wringing out what looked like a sopping rag, though it was actually her favorite skirt. Water was forced out of the cloth and drizzled into the bucket in front of her feet.<p>

"Well you don't gotta do nothing but sit there an' look pretty. I jes' wanna show you something!" he insisted in a loud, young voice.

She straightened her shoulders and looked up at the boy, a dull, though slightly irritated, look on her face. "Can you please make it quick then?"

"And mess up a performance by the Great Me by rushing it?" he said, sounding condescending despite the fact that he was younger than her.

Maka rolled her eyes. "Jes' do it, awright?" she said.

"Kay, here goes," he said, flexing his arms over dramatically to 'get ready'. "Tsubaki!" he called, raising an open and waiting palm.

The girl standing just near him with her long black hair and wide brown eyes like a doe's nodded then, and she turned into a mass of white light. In a moment, the light shot like a beam into the boy's hand and before one could think, she'd abandoned her soft, pale skin for the hard metal of chain scythes.

The chain that held the two blades together shook and jangled between BlackStar's hands, shiny an beautiful in the afternoon sun without a speck of dirt or grime. He swung the two blades around dramatically and recklessly in whirlwinds of shimmering metal.

He twirled them and showed them off like a toy. Maka often wondered if Tsubaki got dizzy or sick when he did this, the poor girl. She truly was the polar opposite of the boy, so quiet and soft and seeming incapable of being anything but gentle. She supposed sometimes, though, she was so quiet because she was embarrassed of the way she spoke.

It wasn't is though her english was bad, but since her parents had come to this country from Japan when she was young, she had a bit of an accent. It wasn't that thick, though, as she'd grown up here starting when she was six or seven. Still, certain people couldn't understand what she was saying. Whether that was because her vocations were truly incomprehensible or simply because people didn't want to take the time to listen to her, though, was still not quite clear.

It was unfortunate, though, that this was the case as she was truly a quite nurturing soul. She'd been almost like an older sister to her in the time she'd known her. She was really the only person on the planet that could stand a wild spirit like BlackStar.

This boy, with his peculiarly colored turquoise hair standing all in spikes, was the loudest, most self-centered person she'd ever met and Maka did not understand how Tsubaki's parents hadn't thrown him out of their house yet. He had honestly no manners at all and she could barely stand to be around him most of the time.

Their own personalities were just too conflicting, she supposed, being that, though she wouldn't admit it outwardly, they both could be quite temperamental.

So as he swung the poor girl about in her weapon form, Maka only sighed and went back to the laundry, her hands sodden with the dirtying water and her skin puckered at her fingertips. She really wasn't even supposed to be transforming at all, even if they were behind the Sheriff's house with nothing behind it but endless desert.

"Awright, awright, now quit it before someone sees you," she hissed, scrubbing one of her father's shirts.

BlackStar just glared at her, though he did pause in his actions and ended up holding Tsubaki above his head in a ridiculously dramatic pose.

"I was done anyway," he said angrily, though she highly doubted this was true. BlackStar didn't like to be done with things that brought him attention.

With that, he dropped his arms and the chain scythes began to glow. The light then slipped from his hands and morphed into the glowing silhouette of a young woman until it faded to reveal the same pale girl in a beige dress that had stood beside him before.

"Let me help," she offered sweetly, sitting down on the steps next to her. She was apparently unperturbed by her meister's antics.

"Thanks, Tsubaki," Maka said adjusting the bucket so she could assist. She'd ask BlackStar to help as well, but he'd just tell her he was too big of a man for this sort of thing.

"When're you gonna get yer own weapon anyway?" he asked, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Ya' can see souls, can't ya? Hell, I can't even do that and I've got a weapon."

"I've got a weapon awready," Maka replied.

"No, no, not that damned pistol you keep," he shook his head. "You know what I mean."

"I don't need anything else," she said, her eyes narrowing at him and his antagonistic tone.

"Fine, fine, whatever," he crossed his arms and looked away from her. "Little girls shouldn't be meisters anyways."

Maka's heart flitted in her chest and sent bolts of energy into her legs, standing her up before she even realized she was doing it. Her legs marched her over to him faster than she could think and a jolt of energy from her stomach shot through her arm, tightening her fingers around themselves.

Her green eyes were hard and sharp, driving daggers into his chest, into his heart, into his lungs. She breathed heavily for a moment, her mind only just beginning to catch up with her actions. She swallowed, but kept leaf colored eyes stabbing into his wild ones as she glared down on him.

She told herself she shouldn't punch him. She told herself not to fight with this idiot, that it wasn't worth it. She told herself over and over again and just stood there, her mind in reckless, rolling, turmoil.

"What?" he hissed, glowering back at her.

"BlackStar," Tsubaki squeaked pleadingly. "Please, you two, don't fight."

Maka didn't know what she was doing. She shouldn't hit him. She shouldn't even try. BlackStar was fantastic at fighting. It would be idiotic to try. She didn't know why she'd gotten up. She didn't know what she was doing.

Her eyes began to soften and her heart began to race. She had no idea what she was doing in the least. Why had she gotten up? Why had she done anything?

She whirled around, her pigtails nearly hitting him in the face. She walked heavily and forcefully back to the laundry and sat down on the steps. She pulled the sopping clothes out of the bucket of water furiously and continued to wipe them down the washboard, her lips a tight line and her damp nails digging deep into the cloth.

"Good, go back to your laundry-"

"Both of you should get gone," she said darkly.

"Jeez, Maka, why're-"

"Get. Gone!" she reenforced, standing up and glaring so intensely into his eyes that his soul began to glow inside his chest, swelling into view and forcing what could only be described as noise into her skull.

"Awright, awright," he said, putting up his hands as though she was attacking him. "C'mon, Tsubaki. She's in a bad mood t'day."

"Jes' go!"

* * *

><p>There was a mansion built of bricks and fine moldings and laced with spindly green tendrils of ivy within the city of Boston, Massachusetts that no one was allowed into unless invited. Of course, most did not wish to enter the house in the first place. It was ominous and surrounded by peculiarly cold air that sent shivers through even the most collected of skins. Some said it was haunted. Some said it was the home of a daemon. Others said it was the home of Death himself, but of course, that was preposterous.<p>

It stood imprisoned behind a black iron gate surrounded by precisely placed and perfectly kept arrangements of trees and bushes that were to be clipped to strict dimensions by only the most capable of gardeners. The owner of the mansion himself could not grow a single thing, though.

The path that led to the elaborate black door with its silver skull-shaped knocker was made of carefully laid slate, also measured to such exactness that it was almost frighteningly straight. The eight steps that led to the huge extravagant door as well were kept perfectly clean and were to be swept exactly three times every day.

The entry hall's floor was made of smooth, flawless black and white tiles shined to the point of mirroring all that was above them. The huge staircase that was lined up exactly with the front door too, also made of cold, white marble, was shined to the utmost of reflectiveness.

This staircase led to the winding labyrinth of corridors that wrapped the many rooms in plaster and black and gray wallpaper, stamped with black doors with silver handles.

Everything here was so perfectly and absolutely scrupulous that it almost didn't seem to be real. It was too exact, the corners too sharp, the surfaces too clean, the floors too spotless. The servants who kept this place so well were surly always working overtime.

Of course, though, it would probably come as a surprise to most anyone to find just how few people worked at this mansion. Most would also find it peculiar that most of the serving staff that worked inside of the place were mostly there to cook and wash clothes and only a few were there to clean. Those that were hired to clean, though, usually could not take the stress and toil of keeping this place in such shimmering and illustrious conditions and did not stay long. It would also probably surprise many to know that the majority of all of the staff was there entirely for the garden, for the young master could grow nothing himself.

He had tried several times and failed, but was not all that discouraged. It didn't bother him much. What _did_ bother him, though, was that the house at the moment was not in order. It bothered him that the maids had not correctly straightened the books in the library and he had to, again, do it all himself.

His fingers brushed delicately over the spines of each and every book as he stood rather precariously on a ladder and slid them into their proper places. Honestly, he'd asked them to do this yesterday and it still was not done. His eyes were wide, glued open by concentration and the slightest twinge of anxiety, as he completed the task they'd fail to accomplish.

This had to be done correctly. This had to be fixed. This was vital. This was incredibly important. This had to be done immediately. It had to be. It needed to be. The books needed to be just as perfect as they possibly could be. It had to happen. It had to. They had to be fixed. They had to be. They had to. They had to. They had to they had to they had to hadtohadto.

He took in a breath and slowly and methodically shoved the books into place on the cherry wood shelf. One hand, also, held a feather duster to removed any and all dust that had most certainly been missed by his incredibly incompetent serving staff.

Was it really that hard? These tasks needed to be completed and they needed to be completed correctly and they needed to be completed today. Today! He was already behind schedule. He took in another breath. He was already a day _late_. He was supposed to have left yesterday.

He was never going to get going at this rate. Truly, having house keepers was the most pointless decision he'd ever made in his life. They were not worth what he paid them. They could never get it right. He always did most of the cleaning himself.

He heard the click of the door just then and the squeak of the hinges. Really? Were the hinges squeaking again? He heard light foot steps echoing out from small, feminine feet across the wooden floor followed by the clanking of fine china.

"Young Master, if it is appropriate, might I suggest you take a break? You've been fixing that shelf all morning," said a hesitant and humble voice in a mouse's pitch.

"I'm afraid it is not appropriate," he said into the book shelf. "These shelves must be fixed if I am to leave at any reasonable time."

"My apologies."

There was a dubious silence for several moments as he continued to fix the books' positions.

"If I may say, it would be best if you drink this tea before it get's cold," she said. He could hear the dribbling sloshes of the tea as it was gently poured into a cup.

"You are excused."

"Yes, Young Master."

The hinges creaked again as the door was opened. He winced.

"Wait," he called. She whirled around to face his back. "Get someone to fix the hinges on that door, will you?"

"Yes, Young Master."

She was gone then, the squeaks of the hinges echoing maddeningly through his already throbbing skull. He closed his aching eyes for a moment and breathed again. Such distractions were most certainly not helping his current situation.

He had to do this. He had to do this now. It had to get done. It had to get done today. He needed to leave soon. He was so so late...

His stomach was knots and his teeth were clenched so tightly that his head hurt, not that it didn't hurt to begin with. He was so late. He was so behind. He was so, incredibly incompetent. He was so late. He was such an imbecile. He was so worthless. He was so ignominious. He was shameful. He was a disgrace. And he was so horrendously late.

He took another breath.

His hands were shaking, brushing over the book spines unsurely and with no control. He was so worthless, so so worthless. He was such a disgrace. He was such a shame. He was such an embarrassment. He was so incredibly behind. He was so horribly late. He was so worthless. He was worthless, worthless, worthless. He-

He breathed.

It was fine. He was fine. He was only a little late. He could make up for it. He had a fast horse. He could still make it on time. He could still make it by the time he'd told them he'd be there. He could still get there. It'd be fine. It'd be fine. Every thing would be fine.

No it wouldn't. No it wouldn't. No it wouldn't.

He had to get the house in order. He had to fix everything before he left. He couldn't leave the house in shambles like this. He couldn't leave yet. He wasn't ready yet. It wasn't ready yet. He couldn't leave yet. He was late. He was behind. He was worthless, worthless, worthless.

His fingers, all creamy and tipped with ragged, chewed fingernails, touched each book with less and less concentration, putting him only further behind schedule. Oh, he was so incredibly useless. He would never get this done. The house would never be in order. It would never be okay. He couldn't leave. Maybe he should just ask to come another time...

No. He was already late. He couldn't cancel now. That would be even worse. He had to finish this. He had to. He had to had to had to.

Just as a tiny whine escaped his throat, he heard a familiar ringing noise sing into the air. His head, which had drooped toward the ladder, snapped up.

He descended the ladder begrudgingly, but he truly had no other choice. This was something he could not ignore for even a moment. Quickly and with much hastened steps, he trotted over to the mirror that hung on the wall. There was a mirror that hung in every room in the mansion, much to all of the staff's confusion.

The ringing, much like the sound of a bell, erupted from it's peculiarly rippling surface. The entire shining thing was like liquid metal with a stone dropped into it. Quickly, he touched a shaky finger to it's swirling surface, waves radiating from his touch.

The ringing stopped and his own warped and unrecognizable reflection faded away, replaced instead by a familiar face. Well, if one could call it a face. He really did not know the face of the being who sat before him, but took has bone-white skull-shaped mask in with comfort.

"Hello, Father," he said humbly.

"Hello, Hello, Kid, good to see you," he said happily from beneath his swirling black cloak and motionless mask.

"You too, Father," The Kid said calmly.

"I'm not interrupting you, am I?" he asked, though they both knew he knew exactly what The Kid had been doing previously.

"No. It's fine," he lied.

"Good, Good," he said. "But, erm... Weren't you planning on leaving yesterday?"

"Ah..." He felt his stomach tighten and his breath hitch. "Yes. I was supposed to," he said hastily. "But the house simply was not in proper order and I couldn't just leave it like this, in this awful sate, you understand. I couldn't leave it. I wouldn't be able to deal with it for the entire trip. I had to fix some things, that's all, and it made me late. I'm very, very sorry Father. I didn't mean for this to happen. I'm so so sorry Father, really, I-"

"Kid, Kid," he said quickly. "It's fine. It's fine. You're not doing that badly. I'm sure you'll be able to make it in time. You've never been late before."

"Y-yes..." he nodded unsurely.

"Good. No use making a big deal out of it, right? Good," he said, his mask smiling. "Now, what I wanted was- have you been keeping crows again?"

"Hm?" His eyes widened and his lips tightened, not sure why he was brining such a thing up. Then he heard the ungraceful flapping of rather large wings and whirled around to find one of those enormous black birds perched atop one of the bookshelves. He sighed. "I-My apologies, Father. They get in whenever the windows are left open."

"Oh, it's fine, it's fine. They're lovely birds, really," he accepted relaxedly, laughing a bit. "Now, I just wanted to make sure everything was going fine. I'll just let you get back to getting ready."

The Kid nodded.

"And don't worry about being late. You've got a great horse," he added sternly.

"Yes..."

"Take care, Kiddo."

"You too, Father."

His smiling mask flickered away, replaced instead with his own reflection consisting of creamy white skin and peculiar and inhuman eyes like honey hidden behind silken, ink black hair. He quickly turned away though, because the unnatural, unnecessary, hideous, shameful three white horizontal stripes still caged the left half of his hair.

He paced back over to the bookshelf and gripped the ladder. With the wheels rolling and grinding over the floor, he swung it around the shelves with ease until it was just a foot away from the crow sitting so comfortably on the cherry wood. He climbed it with ease all the way to the very top.

The crow did not fly away. In fact, it didn't even move. It simply looked at him as he crossed his arms and leaned onto the cold wood of the top of the shelf.

He sighed.

"You know I've got nothing for you."

The bird just ruffled it's inky feathers before clumsily fluttering the short distance to his shoulder, it's scaly feet clutching his shirt and it's claws prickling into his skin. It did not draw blood, however.

The Kid clutched his face in his porcelain hand and he sighed yet again.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Hope that was a good chapter. Kid originally wasn't going to come in until the third chapter, but I felt like this would be appropriate. As you can probably tell by the length of his part, I'm far more used to writing from Kid's POV._

_I hope Maka didn't seem out of character... I'm not so used to her. _

_Reviews are appreciated. _


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Huzah! New chapter_

_I don't own SoulEater _

* * *

><p>It was late at night, the sky turned to black velvet dotted with diamonds and adorned with a manic moon. A candle flickered on Maka's bedside table, it's tiny flame swishing liquidly and little beads of wax dribbling down the milky white sides of the stick. Warm and golden light spilled onto the pages of her book, illuminating the tiny black text. Her honeydew eyes were glued to the words and became blind to the rest of the world. Her mind was swallowed up in the book, letting reality fall away and allowing her to drift into a world where nothing really mattered.<p>

Of course, that was until, to her misfortune, she was torn from this wonderful world by a clamor downstairs. It came through her door, muffled by the wood, in a series of incomprehensible and unrecognizable voices and many ungraceful and hurried footsteps.

Her eyes flew to the door and her attention was redirected. She heard Papa's voice and she thought she heard Doc Stein's as well. There were more people than that, though. There were too many feet for just two people.

She knew it probably had to do with his duties as "sheriff", so she shouldn't be too confused. Things like this could happen any time of the day. She really shouldn't be surprised. She should be able to ignore it. She should just go back to her book.

Papa would be angry with her if she went down there, anyway. There really wasn't a good reason for her to go down there.

She brought her eyes back to her book and began reading again, her eyes flowing swiftly over the page. Word after word, sentence after sentence, rolled under her eyes until she'd gotten to the bottom of the page where she forgot everything she'd just read.

There was more talking, more franticness, more footsteps trudging up the stairway and through her door. She really should just go back to her book and ignore it.

But she couldn't help herself from being curious.

She really shouldn't, though. She really should go back to her book. Actually, she wasn't even supposed to be up. She really should go to sleep. She should just blow out the candle and let darkness consume her room. She should just extinguish that last bit of light. Then, she should put down her book and pull her covers all the way up and go to sleep. She should sleep. She should ignore the noise. It wasn't her business.

Maybe she could just read for a little longer. She skimmed the page for the last word she'd read, searching for where she'd left off. When she found it, she continued on reading. Just for a little longer...

Her eyes were ripped away again, though, when there was a rather loud crash from downstairs. Her eyes were pinned to the door.

She really had no business knowing what they were doing. It wasn't for her to know. It really wasn't. Maka wasn't one to break rules. She didn't want to be in trouble. She really shouldn't try to find out what was going on. She really shouldn't. It wasn't anything she needed to know about. It had nothing to do with her. She didn't need to know.

But her big green eyes stayed staring at that door, at the wood and all of it's grooves twisting toward the ceiling and floor illuminated just barely by the candlelight. She wished she could understand them. All she could here, though, was gargled and soft as feathers, like cotton in her ears or a pillow over their mouths.

It didn't matter, though, because she didn't have to know. It was none of her business. She wasn't really that curious anyway. She really wasn't.

Her fingers crawled over her book and her lips tightened. She didn't want to know anyway. She really didn't.

Really.

She should just go to sleep, just blow out the candle and lie down. Her eyes were getting tired anyway, with heavy lids threatening to close any second. She really should just go to sleep. She really should. She wasn't that curious anyway.

She thought there might be an argument going on. She could hear multiple people with avid, overlapping voices speaking vigorously. Yes, they were most certainly arguing. Perhaps she could just take a quick look...

No, no. It didn't concern her. It had nothing to do with her. She should just blow out the candle and go to sleep. She didn't need to be thinking about this or be worrying about such things. It was none of her business.

Yes, she should just blow out the candle. After a moment of hesitation, she pulled her eyes away from the door to look at the flickering stick of wax. A white pool of dried wax was growing in the bronze dish it sat in and the flame was becoming dim. She must've been reading for longer than she thought. She should just blow it out.

She watched the flame dance for a moment longer. It wouldn't matter. She didn't care about what was happening downstairs anyway. She could not care less, in fact. She should just extinguish it and let the darkness take over. She needed to sleep. Sleeping was more important than whatever was going on.

She should just blow it out, just blow it out, just blow it out, just blow it out, out, out...

She didn't need to be awake any longer. She took in a deep breath and held it for a second.

She should just blow it out. She really should. She didn't care anyway.

She blew a stream of air from her lips, destroying the flame and the tiny light it had provided, dying everything pitch black.

She sighed.

She hadn't cared anyway.

Maka placed the book on her nightstand softly and quietly before sinking into her sheets and pulling the covers over her shoulders. She let the lids of her eyes close over her jade irises.

There was more distorted conversation, though, that kept her mind from sleeping. Maybe she could just check quickly...

No. She didn't need to. She should just sleep.

She rolled over in her bed so that she was facing the window. She didn't allow herself to open her eyes, though. She had to sleep. She had to. She had to be able to get up in the morning. She had to sleep. Her eyes were so heavy, anyway.

Then she heard it, a distinct word coming specifically from her Papa's mouth. It pulled open her eyes so fast she couldn't even think to close them again. She stared at her curtains with wide eyes, that one word ringing over and over again in her mind.

"...Daemon..."

Had that really been what he'd said? Had she heard him right? No, no, she couldn't have. That was impossible. What daemon would be around here?

Her mind flew to the young man playing the piano, with his pure white hair and blood colored eyes. His soul had not been daemonic, though. She was sure of it. Had she been mistaken? Had he done something?

Maybe she hadn't heard him right. Maybe that wasn't what he'd said. There couldn't be a daemon, not around here. There just couldn't be. She must have heard him wrong. She must have.

She should just go to sleep. This wasn't any of her business. This was none of her concern. She should just sleep. Just sleep. Sleep.

She closed here eyes, but her lids were coated with images of that young man with the white hair and red eyes. His soul flitted in and out, so nervous, a bit self-depricating, somewhat odd, but still quite strong. He had been human. He had been. He wasn't a daemon.

Was there someone here that _was _a daemon? She didn't know of anyone here whose soul she hadn't memorized. She knew exactly who everyone was. There couldn't be a daemon around here. There simply couldn't be.

She must not have heard right. She must be tired. She should just sleep.

There were no daemons around here. There just weren't. Doc Stein and her papa had gotten rid of all of them. That's how they'd gotten their positions. There weren't any daemons. That was what she'd always been told. That was what she'd always known.

She didn't need to be thinking about this. She should just be sleeping. There weren't any daemons. She'd heard wrong. She'd heard wrong. There weren't any daemons. She needed to just go to sleep.

There weren't any daemons.

There weren't any daemons.

There weren't any daemons.

There weren't any daemons.

There weren't any...

There weren't any...

There weren't...

There...

* * *

><p>She was so beautiful, they'd always told her. She was just pretty as can be with perfect cheeks like apples coated with flawless, pure skin that had been brushed ever so lightly by the lips of the sun. They'd liked her better pale, though. But her jawline was perfect as could be, drawing together at her chin to form the shape of an illustrious heart. Her lips were soft as warm pink rose petals, just lovely lovely lovely, and just the perfect thickness, just right for kissing.<p>

Her hair was perfect, dark blonde like wheat that fell slickly and softly down her back in sleek, shining, sheets of the finest silk. She twisted it around her fingers, clawing it with perfect nails and slender fingers. She dragged it all together, cupping it delicately, and restrained it with an elegant and tight ribbon of deep blue contorted into a looping bow.

Her eyes were crystalline, just like a doll's they'd say, like the most precious and covetable sapphires, rotting from the inside out. They were like liquid water reflecting the pure cerulean of the skies, a pond, a fountain, an oasis, but they were just so far off one could not be sure if they were real or if daemons were playing tricks on them.

Her little sister had those eyes too, pieces of the sky they'd stolen from their mother. Her's, though, weren't as pretty. Not to men, at least. No, hers were just so wide and wild and swirling with such irrational and demented fury that no one would dare look into their depths. No man would try to touch her when they saw those eyes. They were so happy, though, didn't they understand? Didn't they understand she was just delighted to see them? She was laughing so loudly, so avidly, shrieking with some form of hysteria unmatched by anyone else that came form high in her throat. Wasn't it a good thing that she was happy?

Her hair was so pale, so silky, yellow like butter, like sunflowers. It had been beautiful when it was long. But she'd been unable to manage. She'd gotten some unidentifiable and horrible sticky substance stuck in it, perhaps some of the honey they'd found, she'd thought, and it had had to be hacked to bits; little sunflower petals being plucked from the flower, drifting to the ground like the soft down of a duckling.

Her face was round and young with a flawlessly shaped nose and pink, blushing cheeks like that of a child. She was just as perfect, just as beautiful, but with eyes too untamable for the likes of most. Both of the sisters, though, were just as pretty as could be, just lovely lovely lovely. They were so blessed, so pristine, so absolutely and utterly perfect, like too little dollies with warm, supple, skin.

They shouldn't have any worries. They should be able to find themselves each a husband with a wonderful house they would oh-so lovingly cage them inside of where they'd sew by themselves, their skin hardening into priceless porcelain, until they had daughters to help them and had birthed a blessed son.

They should be so well off, so pampered, so protected, with husbands that loved them enough to keep them forever and never let them go. They were both so beautiful, so precious. It was a wonder they were both still unmarried.

Perhaps the reason was their demeanor? No, that couldn't be it. The younger one _always _laughed at all the men's funny jokes and was always it such high spirits, just dancing forever in her perfect skin and shaking bones, wracking in her own mirth. The older, too, was always so polite, always minded her tongue and only said what was necessary. She only ever had positive things to say, her pretty pretty lips only forming the truest of compliments.

No, there was really nothing wrong with them. It was such a shame. Their bodies, their faces, their hair, their skin, their precious, rotting eyes, were all so wonderfully _perfect. _It was awful that they were still free of wedlock.

Oh well. Maybe they'd find someone someday. This man before them didn't seem to be the type they were looking for. He was large and round, just off the train and looking to get his greedy, crawling, thieving, piggy hands on some silver mine out this way. His face was pink and swollen disgustingly, and his eyes were brown as muck surrounded by sclera yellowed by fat. A tie was tight around his thick neck, cutting into the sack of fat around his trachea he called a throat.

He didn't belong out here. He really didn't. He was definitely not the sort of person either of them wanted to spend the rest of their lives with. He was a crybaby, too. Really, he looked just like an oversized infant in a stupid fucking suit sobbing in the night for his mother to come and save him from the monsters.

There was a flurry of light, like shimmering, luminescent sand blowing in the wind, and the younger sister was gone. Instead, she was replaced by a shiny silver and black flintlock pistol with twisting, curling, designs crawling over it like priceless tendrils. The older sister's thumb slipped over the lustrous skull on her grip for a moment before she cocked the gun with a quick, mechanical, click.

She stuck her poor sister up against the man's fat, balding, head, her barrel pressing into his pudgy temple.

Smoke swirled around her head like a toxic halo from the cigarette held tight between her teeth while she smiled under the moonlight at him.

"How 'bout I take that suitcase off yer hands, there?" she asked him politely. It looked so heavy. It wouldn't be right to make him carry it all the way through the desert. His horse, too, would only be a nuisance, having to feed and water it constantly. It would be better to let _them _take on the burden.

He didn't seem to understand the gesture, though, and just laughed awkwardly. "You... You two... ladies... just get on goin' now. I don't want any trouble."

"Oh, no, really. I insist," she said. Her pretty pink lips cracked by the desert air spread into a wider smile. She was happy, see? She was being so sweet, sweet as candy.

"You don' wanna do this, y'hear me? The sheriff of this here town is-"

"Oh, don't you be worryin' about the sheriff, now," she reassured him. "Jes' lemme take that off your hands."

She gripped the smooth leather handle of the suitcase and began to pry it from his crawling, maggot, fingers. He wouldn't let go. He just didn't know how to accept help, now did he?

"Come on, I'll take good care of it," she whispered through her cracked, sugar-coated lips, so much like smashed candy.

With a good tug, she ripped the suitcase from his big, pink, fingers. He seemed so unwilling though, and started grabbing at her with his sweaty, filthy, thieving hands. He clutched her skinny wrists in his fat fingers, gripping them tightly. His pudgy pink face was contorted with vicious, unneeded fury that was just about as frightening as a newborn baby's cry.

"Don' you be doin' that, you little whore. You'll regret it, I swear!"

Oh, he was just not polite at all.

He was also pretty weak. With only slightly strained ease, she pushed her little sister back up agains his skull, now deformed with pulsing veins. She could hear her sister's laughs. She knew this man must be just joking around. She understood. She was always in such a great mood.

Then her finger was around the trigger, neatly placed just where it was meant to be. She took one last look at the man's revolting face before she pulled it and he was sent to the ground with an abnormally quiet_ BANG_, slumping over like a bag of pudding.

Maybe someday they'd figure out why no one cared to marry them.

* * *

><p>Oh, were they coming now? Were they chasing them? There were horses off in the distance, little shadows crawling on the horizon like insects. Were they coming for them? Were they? Were they?<p>

She strained her big blue eyes in attempt to pierce the thick veil of night they rode beneath, an unnamed, unimportant, unidentifiable horse carrying them against it's will. Her and her sister rose in fell with each of it's galloping steps, a heavy and pounding rhythm that thudded over the ground and into her ears and her head and her heart and her chest.

Were they coming for them? Were they? They were going the wrong direction if they were. They were so far off, so distant, just squirming silhouettes dancing on a balance beam an infinitely absurd distance away.

They weren't coming to get them? Maybe someone else would. Her big sister had shot somebody! She'd shot 'em right in his big, fat, head. Sure, he probably wasn't dead. Her big sister never left them dead. No, she probably had just knocked him out.

Oh, but wasn't it funny? He was just like a big fat pig, squealing and writhing, begging and pleading and sweating under her big sister's gaze. He'd been raised all his life, building it up for so many years, all his fat and his wealth until he was at peak condition to be slaughtered.

It was just so fun to slaughter piggies. It was just so funny, the looks they gave them, wide, ogling eyes so full of confusion and alarm at the sudden realization of just what was happening to them. She swore she could see death reflecting in their eyes.

But they hadn't killed anyone in a real long time. It wasn't something that happened too often, really, and when it did, it was a forbidden topic that would be shoved deep down into the cracks where no one could find it, left to fester and rot and be chewed up by rats. Her big sister would make sure neither of them remembered.

She wasn't supposed to even breathe a word of it, she'd said, and she wasn't even supposed to think about it. It had never happened, not really. It had been an accident, in truth. It really had been.

Maybe it really had never happened. It was just a dream from so many impossible lifetimes ago that it couldn't really exist. It was just a quick, so quick she might've imagined it when she'd blinked, sudden expulsion of meat and red ribbons and pearls on fleshy strings from a porcelain skull that had never held an identity.

It wasn't real. It really wasn't. It must've been a dream.

How come they weren't chasing them? What were they doing over there? Were they taking a complex root to stop them somewhere? Where were they going?

And she hadn't been laughing. She hadn't been. She couldn't have been.

But she remembered her chest aching and shaking, her ribs crawling underneath her skin as her fingers gripped her sides. She had been choking, that's what her big sister had said. Her sister had been choking too. Her big sister was always right, always, always, always. She'd never ever been wrong before, so she must've really been choking.

But she couldn't have been choking, 'cause it never really happened. It was just a phantasm dead in a ditch somewhere. She must've dreamt she'd been choking, must've been hacking the dust out of her lungs.

'Cause her big sister was never wrong and her big sister never lied.

"Hey. Hey, Liz?" Her voice was wispy and at a child's key, singsongy and dancing off her lips as though they were a stage. "Are they followin' us? Are they? Hey, Liz."

She didn't answer. The wind was whipping over them, cold as the dead and howling in agony through their ears. She probably couldn't hear her. It was fine. She probably just didn't hear.

"Liz? Hey, Liz?"

She thought she heard a hissing noise, quick and hastened. Maybe it was just more of the wind. She couldn't tell. She really wanted to know if they were following. She couldn't tell herself. Were they following? Were they?

"Liz! Are they following, us?"

"Hush, Patty," she said, her voice ripped to so many shreds by the wind it barely made it to her ears in a coherent whisper.

"Are they?"

"Hush!"

She pressed her lips together and her fingers crawled over themselves, clutched together over her sister's stomach, corseted in by the constricting garment beneath her cotton blouse tucked into her men's pants.

Patty's ears were starting to sting in the cold of night as the icy dessert air whirled around her head, taring her feather-soft hair in each and every direction. She tucked her head down closer to her sister's shoulder, trying to keep the wind from ripping at ore of the feeling from her skin.

"We gon' go to the next town, okay? The next town we find," she heard her sister yell into the wind. "I don' think anyone noticed. We're just gonna go to the next town. We're gonna stay there for a couple'a days."

"Okay," she agreed, though she wasn't sure if her sister' heard her. Either way, she wasn't going to disagree. Liz was always never wrong and Liz never lied. Whatever she said, it'd be fine, just fine.

So Patty just watched the shadows crawling on the horizon so far away and wondered where so many horses could be going so late at night. It must be something good. She wished she knew, oh how she wished she knew.

She supposed it didn't matter, though. She supposed it was none of her business. She supposed...

Something caught her eye, just then, something that was so incredibly off and so horrendously, and atrociously _wrong_ that should could not have seen it right.

Her head twisted to the side to stare at it with wide, cerulean eyes, reflecting the manic light of the moon and shimmering with fear. She swallowed and her stomach seemed to fall momentarily, only to rebound by sending a thick wave of nausea into her throat.

It went by so fast. It... It wasn't real. She was dreaming. It was a nightmare, a hellish nightmare, just like the one she was never supposed to talk about.

Against a rock, a thousand flies swirled through the darkness, all congregating in one spot to form a black, shining, mass, buzzing ravenously and devouring some deformed, hulking, shape that stuck out at odd angles. Under the luminescence of the smiling moon, she saw silken, red, ribbons glistening in the sand, tying up smashed porcelain and ripped cotton.

It was a dream, though. It was a dream, a dream, a dream.

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><p><em>AN: OH GOD SOMETHING ACTUALLY HAPPENED! _

Reviews...?


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Finally got my shit together and wrote a new chapter. Now, CLEVER AVOIDANCE OF IMPOSING A GENDER ON CRONA TO AVOID OFFENDING ANYONE (which ironically will probably somehow offend everyone, because this is the internet.)

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><p>Thin, dry, blades of grass poked up weakly through the thirsty earth around a worn-wooden house, the only one for miles. The wood was gray and slightly warped, but there was glass in the windowpanes, filthy though that glass may be, through which gray eyes could peer.<p>

Stormy irises set in pinkish sleep-deprived eyes sat inside of exhausted and drooping sockets. Sallow skin covered a gaunt face pressed up against the cloudy glass, and a fly momentarily landed on thin lavender hair. A bony hand swatted it away quickly and sent it buzzing off to another part of the room.

The sun was rising outside. Splashes of pink and purple and red were blooming up from the horizon, turning the clouds into candy floss. The sun, the light, the warmth, the day were all coming soon, in just an hour or two. It wouldn't take much longer. The dark would be gone. The dead of night would be gone, gone, gone. The blackness would finally lift just a bit, just a little bit.

Everything was always worse at night. Everything was just so uncertain, so unnaturally despicable in the dark when one's eyesight would fail. The shadows played tricks in the dark, and the sounds would play with them, dancing their strange dance around a person's head, driving them mad, mad, mad.

It was a new day now, though. It was dawn. What day was it today? Wednesday? No, no. Yesterday was Wednesday, wasn't it? It was Thursday now. Thursdays were always better than Wednesday. Wednesdays were always full of woe.

That's how the rhyme went, right?

Wednesdays are full of woe, and Thursdays have far to go. Maybe that was wrong, though. That didn't sound quite right. It was something like that, though. Tuesdays are full of grace, whatever that meant. That must be wrong. That didn't make sense.

Today was Thursday, though, right? Maybe that was tomorrow. Maybe it was Wednesday again.

Dry lips itched to ask, but half a mind believed it would be better to keep quiet. There weren't any words behind those lips anyway. There was barely enough fresh air to make them with.

How did it go? How did it go?

Wednesdays are full of woe, and Thursday's have far to go, and... and Fridays... Fridays are kind and... and something else. That didn't make sense. Something was missing.

It didn't really matter. At least it wasn't Wednesday. It wasn't, right?

Skinny fingers capped with damp and ragged nails twisted around each other. Maybe the door would be unlocked today. Maybe there'd be food today, now that Wednesday's horrors had been endured. There was usually food the day after the horror, which would be devoured regardless of the deep need to vomit.

There wasn't anyone else awake in the little house right now, so no one was cooking yet. They'd be up soon, though. They always got up when the sky turned into candy.

Thursdays were always good days, even if they were supposed to have far to go. That still didn't sound quite right, though. Something was missing.

Monday, Monday, what was Monday? Monday was... The line "fair of face" kept coming to mind, but that didn't make sense. How could a day be fair of face? Something was missing, but fatigue was blocking coherent thought.

Eyelids slipped closed for a moment, but snapped back upon enveloping pupils in darkness. No sleeping. There might be food today. Today was Thursday. There was always food on Thursday. Missing it would be suicide.

It could be supposed that there was food on Wednesday as well, but it was never favorable. It wasn't anything that would ward off starvation. It wasn't even genuinely edible, at least not for this child.

Was it food? What was it even made of?

It didn't even rightly exist until it was plucked from that lump of meat it called a body.

What were they made of? What did they do?

Saturday, Saturday. Saturday... worked hard for a living? That didn't quite. No...

Go back, go back. To the beginning of the song.

Back, back, back.

A child, a child, that was what was missing.

Monday's _child _is fair of face.

Tuesday's _child _is full of grace.

Wednesday's _child _was full of woe.

Thursday's _child _has far to go.

Friday's _child _is kind and giving.

Saturday's _child _works hard for a living.

And Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, what in the world was the child of Sunday?

This child here, staring out that window framed with dirt with storm-ridden irises and hair like lavender spun into the softest, dirtiest, mangled, thread ever beheld, must be the child of Wednesday.

Wednesday, Lady Wednesday, the woman hair like wheat and eyes slit like a snake's. Of corse, she went by Medusa, but she truly must be Wednesday.

What was Sunday's child like? The child born on such a holy day, on the sabbath day, what must they be like? They must be beautiful, they must be righteous, they must be perfect, and it must be truly euphoric to be in their presence.

The _child _that was born on the sabbath day was bonny and blithe and good and gay.

And this poor, lavender-haired child of Wednesday with dead, dead, eyes would imagine the child of Sunday to be young and vibrant and with eyes as pure and green as the essence of life itself.

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><p>He was not quite as odd looking as BlackStar, what with his hair being an average brown and all, but he was most certainly a peculiar sight. He was a gangly thing, clearly never having worked a day in his life, with skin a color she'd only seen on corpses. His skinny hands were folded neatly in front of him and his posture was practiced and polished as shiningly as his boots.<p>

When her papa had her shake hands with him, first stating that, "This is my daughter, Maka," he gripped her smaller hand between both of his. His touch was absolutely freezing, as though he'd just come in from the snow, and pushed a wave of goosebumps up her arms. There was another feeling, though, that shot through her when she touched him that seemed to interfere with every nerve, every muscle, every thought, every beat of her heart. Her knees weakened for just a fraction of a second and she felt them bend, threatening to fail her and let her drop to the floor.

She thought she felt her heart stop, or maybe it was her stomach lurching. She couldn't tell. Her throat tightened and her breath became sharp and seemingly airless. Her mind seemed to seize up, becoming numb and denying all of her wishes. Everything stopped, froze, broke, stiffened, tripped, crashed, and died, died, died.

And then as soon as she'd felt it, it was over and done with, lost and forgotten and thrown out beyond her reach.

"It's very good to meet you, Maka," he said stiffly. Oh, he was very practiced at manners. She could tell already.

"Same to you," she said. She was just as practiced. It wasn't that she disliked him, as she had no means to, however there was an obvious air about him, stemming mainly from the pristinely made clothing he wore and his finely combed chocolate silk hair, which had sat underneath a black bowler hat that he had begrudgingly removed, that made it quite obvious he was quite well off, almost snobbish. Then of course there were his eyes.

His eyes were like a dot of fine honey in a glass of milk, like something she'd never seen before. Strange eyes were always accompanied by strange souls, and his was no exception. It was conflicted beyond all means, most certainly living up to the 'nervous condition' her papa had said he'd had, and had three strange horizontal lines wrapping around half of it, a characteristic she'd never even heard of. The emotions that radiated from it were something writhing and twisting within a net of anxiety.

She couldn't quite focus on reading him much longer, though, as she could feel those liquidly amber eyes on her like knives. It took her a moment to recognize that he was reading her as well.

He could see souls too. She knew he could. It made sense, too. What old family friend of her papa's would have a son that couldn't see souls? There was no doubt in her mind that he was either weapon or meister.

"Maka, this is Death the Kid," Papa said. "He's goin' to be stayin' with us for a while."

A very interesting name indeed. She tried her best to sound confident saying his name, but it was such an odd name, and such a long name, that there was nothing she could do to keep it from twisting uncomfortably on her tongue.

"Well, hello," she had to pause. "Death the Kid." It sounded far too much like a title, a title for one who made far more trouble than he was worth. She'd love to know what his real name was underneath that facade.

"You may call me 'Kid' if you like," he said.

"Alright, then," she obliged. "Hello, Kid."

He smiled lightly and approvingly.

"I'll help ye' get yer things," Papa said, clapping a hand on Kid's shoulder.

As soon as her Papa had removed his hand from his shoulder though, a small twinge of anxiety bubbled up in his features and he immediately began rubbing his shoulder. For the tiniest fraction of a second, she thought her Papa had hurt him, but then she realized he was rubbing the shoulder her Papa hadn't touched.

"Maka, you take his horse and put 'em away in the stables, awright?" Papa said on his way out the door.

"Okay," Maka agreed without hesitation.

Though, Kid seemed to hesitate quite a bit. He fidgeted for a moment before saying with a surprisingly clear voice, "I'd like to take him back to your stables myself, if you don't mind. He's not particularly cooperative with other people."

Maka and her papa exchanged glances.

As he walked out the door, boots thumping across the floor hurriedly, he said, "I don't think there'll be any problems with the other horses, but I don't think he'll be particularly happy about um, well..."

He trailed off as he rushed over to the horse, careful to make sure he got there well before her Papa did, who was still standing in the doorway.

The horse, she saw now, actually didn't look particularly special. Its fur was black, its mane was black, its eyes were black; it may as well be just one big black smear of spilled ink that happened to have formed into the shape of a horse. Other than that, though, it seemed fairly normal and actually quite tame. Of course, she assumed it was probably best to take the guy's word for it. It was his horse after all.

"I, uh, wouldn't reject help with my belongings, though," he said.

Her papa went to help him, with the rich brunette boy called Death the Kid undoing the fastenings and buckles that held his suitcases to the saddle as Papa took a portion of them into the house. He really did have a lot of belongings. She wondered how the horse was able to carry them all. She also wondered just why in the world he needed them, as well as just how long he'd be staying.

They carried his suitcases up into the empty bedroom next to hers, the one that had once been a study of sorts that she'd quite enjoyed reading in. Papa talked to him the whole time, asking him questions about anything that piqued his curiosity, much of which did not revolved around Kid himself.

"So how's your father been, eh?" he'd asked as soon as the first suitcase had been set next to his bed.

"Oh he's been fine, I suppose," he'd said in that north-eastern accent. "Haven't spoken to him much, honestly."

"Oh that's a shame," he'd replied.

Maka paid little attention to their conversations as she'd stood awkwardly at the foot of the stairs, unsure what to do with herself as she felt it unfit of her to ignore a guest, but at the same time was not expected to help with moving his suitcases. She'd sort of like to, though, as her Papa wasn't particularly graceful about it and she felt that if she was helping things would get done faster.

Nevertheless, she stayed where she was, waiting for them to finish up so she could help the horse into the stables.

Somewhere along the line, her mind drifted into the previous morning at the well and her inner eye skimmed across the quick flash of the white-haired boy's face she'd been able to catch. Those ruby-red eyes and hair so light blonde it was mostly white. It had been light blonde, hadn't it been? No one had silvery white hair when they were that young.

Then she remembered the piano, how he'd smashed it, and how he'd seemed so upset, and a pit opened up in her stomach. Then she forcibly shoved all the thoughts of the stranger out of her head, because she couldn't bare the embarrassment.

But even so, she remembered his piano playing, and even though she didn't particularly have an ear for music, she did know what good music was supposed to sound like, and she did recognize his talent. She wished she hadn't upset him...

And there was the pit again, threatening to make her vomit. She shoved the thoughts out of her mind as quickly as she could, and was thankful when her papa directed some of his words at her.

"Maka, honey, I've gotta go talk to Stein about some things, awright?" he said as he rushed down the stairs.

"Okay," she agreed.

"You help Kid with his horse. Sorry I have to leave so fast, I just noticed the time..." he said hurriedly with his hand on the door handle.

"It's fine, Papa, don't worry, I know what to do," she assured.

"Right, I trust you," he said as he left. Then the door closed and she was already halfway up the stairs.

She found their guest straightening the suitcases and carpetbags into extremely neat piles in a way that could almost be described as manic. He was so focused on his meticulous task, though it's point was questionable, that he barely noticed her come in. She stood in the doorway uncomfortably for several moments before clearing her throat and alerting him of her presence.

His head snapped in her direction and his eyes focused on her.

"So what about your horse, then?'" she said.

"R-right," he said as he straightened up, though his attention kept shifting to his unnecessarily numerous suitcases.

As they made their way down the creaking stairs she asked, "So how come your horse doesn't like people?"

"Because he's mine," he said simply.

The oddness of that statement bothered her. "Whadaya mean?"

"I mean he isn't anyone else's horse besides mine," he said. Good God, this guy was a weird one.

"Alright," she said, though she left the statement a bit open ended in hopes he'd continue to explain. Of course, however, he did not.

Once outside, he untied the horse's reins from their porch.

"The stable's 'round back," she said. "He wont spook the other horses will 'e?"

"He shouldn't," he said, wrapping the reins in his fist and beginning to guide the horse.

She watched the horse begin to follow him calmly, it's huge hooves moving over the sand in a way that was simultaneously clumsy and graceful.

Maka unconsciously made a point to stay well ahead of the horse as he walked it around the house.

"What's his name?" she asked.

"Beelzebub," he stated.

She felt it odd to name a horse after a that horrid gluttonous daemon, but at the same time supposed it was fitting to the way he described him. Though it was likely just an attempt to scare people, make them feel intimidated.

She directed him and the horse around back, where they put it away in the stables. All she could say about their new guest was that at least he was something interesting.

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><p>Soul slipped off the saddle of his horse and into the dry, corse, grass. His boots crunched over the dead little blades as he made his way to the wooden ranch house.<p>

The sent of cattle was strong on the wind as a wire fence, both keeping the cattle in and the humans out, encased a herd of such beasts quite near by.

They were all clustered together in a corner rather far from the small house, eating grass and looking fairly unintimidating. He wondered how complicated driving them could be. After all, there really weren't too many of them. There were only maybe five to ten of them.

He could do that.

He walked up the creaking steps and onto the porch, rapped on the door three times, and waited. He stood there for a few moments, paper clutched in his hands, until he heard footsteps coming across the floor inside. The doorknob turned and the hinges squeaked and a woman with braided blonde hair stood before him.

"Can I help you?" she said with an unwelcoming smile, though he felt it was meant to seem kind and gentle, and an odd flicker in her golden eyes.

"Yeah," he said, unfolding the paper pressed between his fingertips. He showed her the parchment and the thick black letters. "I heard you were looking for someone to drive your cattle?"

Her eyes widened a bit and filled with compression. She took the poster from his hands with her long, thin fingers. Her nails were grown out to a length that made them eerily claw-like and were painted bright ruby red. "Why, yes of course," she said, that same smile on her face.

"So you must be Miss Medusa, then?" he concluded.

"You are indeed correct," she said, crumpling up the paper and stepping out of the doorframe. "I s'pose you're interested in the job then?"

"Yes, ma'am," he stated.

"Well," she began, pocketing the crumpled paper, "You got any 'sperience as a cowboy?"

"Yes, ma'am, of course" he lied confidently, his shoulders stiffening.

Her head tilted to the side as she eyed him. "You got a name?"

"My name is 'Soul Evans', ma'am," he said. Her eyes traveled over him as she sized him up. This made him stiffen further.

"Well, Soul," she said slowly, calmly. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but the position's already been filled."

His heart sank. "Are, are you sure?" he asked. "Are you sure you couldn't use an extra hand?"

"I've got everything sorted out just fine," she said.

He needed this job. He needed money. He needed to keep traveling.

"Really, I could help," he said as she started ebbing back inside. "One person isn't enough to do this job alone, right? I could help."

Her expression was slowly hardening. "The position's been filled," she said. "Besides, you wreak of the city. I have a feelin' there are people out there more qualified than you."

He wet his lips nervously. "I'm trying to make it to California," he said. "I really need this job."

"And I need my cattle to make it up east all in one piece," she said.

"I made it all the way from the east all in once piece," he said, neglecting to mention the help he'd had. "I'm sure I could do it in reverse."

She leaned up against the doorframe with crossed arms. Her unnatural sunflower colored eyes looked him over, trailing down to his feet and back up to his face over and over again. Then she glanced to the side at the field of cattle.

"Those cattle need to get to the train station to take 'em up east," she explained. "I already got someone to drive 'em, and he's worked for me before. Honestly, the boy's a bit of a moron, but I know he does his work. I'm not payin' more than one boy to drive these cattle. However..."

He made sure to keep full eye contact with her.

"I will consider you if you two can split the pay," she said.

"I don't mind splitting it," he said, just grateful to have a chance at a job.

"Oh it wasn't you I was worried about," she said. "You're gonna have to convince him to give you part. That's not my problem, though. You two can work that out yerselves. What I do need you to worry about is this, Soul Evans;

If you don't get all of those cows where they need to be, you're gonna be taking their place."

"Alright. Got it," he said uncomfortably as he nodded and looked away from her for a moment. "So does that mean I've got the job?"

"You can drive my cattle if you want to," she said. "I'm not the one guaranteeing you'll get payed. You're gonna have to ask the boy who's really got the job."

"Alright, well, who's that?" Soul asked.

Medusa sighed and her dried out lips curled. "Little blue-haired moron named BlackStar."

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><p>It really wasn't polite to have a guest be cleaning your house, but as she watched him scrub the floors with reddening hands, she supposed there wasn't much she could do about it in this case. The floor <em>was<em> in need of a good scrubbing, anyway. This she knew. However, she wished he hadn't been so vocal about it.

Still, he was sitting on the floor, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and hands firmly wrapped around a rag as he muttered to himself about the mess. She wasn't sure if this proved how spoiled he was or if it disproved it.

"You sure you don't want any help with that?" Maka asked.

"No. Don't worry about me. It's fine. I just need to..." Kid trailed off.

She just watched as he scrubbed and scrubbed, apparently determined to give their house a facelift. She didn't know if she should be insulted or flattered.

"So you're an empath too?" he asked unexpectedly.

"An empath?" she asked.

"Someone who can read people's souls," he said.

She blinked.

"Y-yeah," she said. "How did you-"

"You're not good at being subtle," he said. "You stare straight through people."

So she'd been right. He had been reading her earlier. "You're not exactly subtle either," she said.

He didn't respond. Instead, he asked, "Are you weapon-tech?"

She was surprised he knew about all of this, and that he was speaking about it so confidently. It wasn't exactly a normal topic. The whole concept of weapons and meisters and empaths was strictly underground.

"No," she said. "Are you?"

"No," he responded.

There was a thick curtain of silence between them again for a moment.

"You ever seen a daemon's soul?" she asked. "I never have. I've read about them and what they're s'pose to look like, but I've never seen on in person."

He thought for a moment and then said, "Yes, I have."

He didn't say anymore on the subject.

"Who's your father?" she asked.

At that he just looked up at her with his milk-and-honey eyes in surprise. Then he sat up and rang out the rag into the bucket, the dirty water drizzling out of the fibers. He was very careful to focus on the rag as he did so. In the end, without making eye contact, he managed to tell her nothing more than, "My father is a very important person."

"How does he know my papa?" she asked.

"They worked together," he said. "I don't really know the story. You'll have to ask him if you want to know."

Then he went back to cleaning the floors, and would continue on to rearrange their dish cabinet, dust the entire house, and leave no floor un-swabbed. He would rearrange every room into something perfectly symmetrical, and left nowhere untouched besides her own bedroom. She was starting to feel she should be insulted.

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><p><em>AM: This was kind of a setup chapter. More stuff will happen in the next update, I swear. _


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